Playing Against Type
by the monochromatic
Summary: 'Castiel does not have a 'type.' Attraction – at least, under its strictest definition – is not a thing he understands.' A generic, ambiguous character study from Castiel's perspective.


**Opening Notes: **So, first things first - _Supernatural _is not my sandbox, I just enjoy playing in it. Read as: disclaimer. I gave up not shipping Destiel when I realized that I was _actively _trying not to ship it by 7x22. So here, we have both my first foray into SPN fic.

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Castiel does not have a 'type.' Attraction – at least, under its strictest definition – is not a thing he understands. He imagines though, that it isn't dissimilar to preferring one particular painting over another; he thinks it must make the difference between admiring a sculpture and paying to take it home with you.

Castiel derives an outsider's pleasure from art. He has achieved some small miracles of his own: a bed of hyacinths so sweet, their perfume eases pain; a hummingbird whose feathers compress the story of Creation into the language of color.

And then there's Dean Winchester.

He cannot claim full credit for Dean, but Castiel privately likes to think that this Dean is the better one, now that privacy is a luxury he can access. Small blessings, after all. He remade Dean – Dean, who after torture and fire and brimstone and bloodshed was little more than a shattered clay jar. Castiel knows Dean's insides, his thoughts, his fears, his hopes, his shames. He knows the stretch of tenuous muscle over tired, young bones. He knows that the green of Dean's eyes is disarmingly similar to the fresh, springy green of the Cambrian sea, and with as many flecks of life.

When Castiel remade Dean, he made him into a functional work of art – a war machine. This was on orders, and now he thinks he would have done differently, given a choice. He has contemplated a thousand other pictures he could have painted: he could have drawn upon Dean's innate strength, or rearranged the smallest structure of his mind. He could easily have made the war machine into a shepherd of love.

The thought feels blasphemous, even now.

Neither purpose suits Dean Winchester, Castiel knows. Not war machine nor shepherd of love nor vagrant prophet, no more than doting husband or functional father. It hurts, but it is true. Perhaps, Castiel laments, it hurts because it is true. He knows Dean Winchester like he knows the hearts of his brothers, and yet, after all this time, Dean can still color him surprised.

He has yet to get a grasp on the concept of lovemaking, but Castiel likes kissing. Or, in his limited experience, he likes the idea of kissing. Specifically, he likes the idea of kissing Dean. His kiss with Meg had been educational, and in fact quite exhilarating, but it had been missing something. Now, he understands that the lacking ingredients were love, passion, adoration. He loves Dean. He loves Dean in the way he loves all of humanity, and then some. He loves Dean's tenacity, his righteous will, contrasted with his lingering indulgence of all life's basest pleasures. Castiel loves Dean's complexity. He feels passionately for Dean. His passion begins with Dean's safety and ends with his happiness, and if the latter is something Castiel can ever provide for Dean, he will go to the ends of this world and the next to deliver. His passion for Dean isn't unlike Michael's passion for Lucifer: he yearns to protect Dean, mostly from himself. He learned his lesson though, because unlike the tragic, endless rift between his brothers, Castiel adores Dean. He adores every nook and every crevice, all filled to overflowing with flaws and sin. He adores the contradictions that double back on themselves, leveling conscious decision with the bitterness of hypocrisy. He very much adores the things that make Dean human: dissent, uncertainty, emotion.

There are other things Castiel adores in Dean, things that only manifest when he inhabits his vessel. He adores the focus of Dean's whole body when he drives; fingers wrapped around the wheel, callouses and scars and burns nestled against the broken, black leather; the way his eyes scan the road, anticipating, almost challenging. Sometimes the road challenges him back, sometimes it does not. When Dean grips the steering wheel tight, manically turning it hand-over-hand to avoid collision with creature, with tree or with other oncoming car, Castiel feels a strange, not wholly unpleasant tug in his gut. He also feels this other thing...this, flutter, he would describe it as, painful and noxious in his chest whenever Dean smiles. Castiel adores his smile – his real smile. When it is genuine and happy, when white teeth stand out against fair stubble and chapped lips, Castiel feels a swell inside his veins that scares him almost as much as it delights him. He knows Dean would call this admission 'sappy.'

Castiel has regrets. He has never felt regret until Dean. There are a lot of things he has never felt until Dean, among them confusion, pain, and anger. But regret is the strongest, for Castiel's regret is both passive and active.

Before Dean, Castiel felt conviction. He felt family. He felt satisfaction. But after Dean, he found that there were variations on all these things, subtle and numerous. He felt a pride so strong that it blinded him, destroyed him. He felt intense, very different sorts of conviction, which brewed conflict in the deepest recesses of his Grace. He felt family of a kind he never knew existed – bound inexplicably together and yet separate from one another; free to deviate from each other and yet deeply mourned when lost. He felt satisfaction of a selfish, terrifying sort, at times for the strangest reasons. He wonders if there are yet other flavors of satisfaction, and if Dean will be the one to peel them back.

Castiel, despite himself, isn't a fool. He knows he is not the softness Dean so often craves. He knows he isn't exotic, at least not in the way of pliant curves and thick lashes. His voice is more of a growl than a lilt, his hips are narrow and bony. He has nothing with which to cushion Dean against, no alluring trap of bosom or enticing sweetness. But because he is no fool, he has seen all of Dean's desires, however confused and unbidden. On occasion, Dean will admit that there is a longing in him for something more familiar, something he needn't work too hard to please. Castiel knows that sometimes, Dean finds the female puzzle stale, redundant. Dean is not fond of puzzles, only the completed picture.

"Cas?"

Castiel looks up, and sees a reflection of his absence in Dean's face. It's that old adage about the lights being on but the house is empty, or something. "Dean."

Dean hasn't showered in two days – hasn't had time. There's blood and dirt and sweat, all dried into a brackish crust under his fingernails, which are chipped, the surrounding skin swollen. Castiel wonders if it is painful.

"We're just gonna' swing by the Jackson place and, ah..." he turns his eyes away, but Castiel can see that he is wracked with guilt and upset. He feels like a failure.

"Finish the job?" Sam supplies angrily, eyes boring into Dean's back, ignoring the dour look Castiel throws him.

"To make sure everybody's okay!" Dean snaps over his shoulder. His jaw is rigid and the muscles in his neck are tight. He knows he is going to have to kill a woman – somebody's wife, no less. He knows he has no choice. He thinks, if only I'd figured it out sooner, if only I'd acted on my gut... And Castiel wants to shroud him in Grace, to warm him and protect him and whisper into his skin, This was not your fault. It will never be your fault. Stop blaming yourself.

Instead he watches the boys load their guns and pack their bags, silent and tense. Where Dean burns hot, Sam burns cold. Their anger is tangible in the air, sour and stifling.

Castiel knows it would be fruitless to intervene but he almost does, just the same.

As the two of them leave, they turn out the lights. Dean turns in the doorway and just stands there a minute, a still shadow puppet against the cold, pale street lamps blinking behind him. Castiel can hear his breathing, raw and reined in against the clinical buzzing of the neon 'VACANY' sign. He can smell fear and anger. He stands just as still, watching Dean's eyebrows meet in confusion in the dark.

"Are you coming?"

"Do you need my help?" Castiel knows the answer.

"No, but we're not coming back after this."

"I know."

Dean shifts uncomfortably from foot to foot, like a beast at the mercy of a double barrel. "Look, I know you can just mojo yourself from place to place, and that's great, but..."

"I'll catch up to you and Sam, when next you stop."

Castiel passes the test within the test. He rejects Dean's offer to ride in the car with them – to listen to that loud, cluttered configuration of noise that Dean calls music; to sit shotgun while Sam sleeps, cramped in the back of the car; to savor the ripe aroma of weak beer and a quarter-pound cheeseburger, and maybe take a bite for himself, if he feels so inclined.

He means to send Dean off with a final parting, but Dean is gone. Castiel is alone, in the dark, with a foreign sensation crawling beneath his skin. Maybe, in fact, he is failing the test.

Castiel does not have a 'type.' But, he suspects, if he ever did, for whatever reason, it might possibly, vaguely resemble Dean.


End file.
